As the sun was coming up this morning, Heydi Lopes and I were walking into Calvert Vaux Park in Brooklyn (aka Dreier-Offerman Park). Birds seemed to be dropping out of the sky everywhere. The walk through a weedy path between 6 Diamonds Park and Calvert Vaux flushed hundreds of Yellow-rumped Warblers, White-throated Sparrows, Song Sparrows and Swamp Sparrows. I'm sure that there were lots of other species in the mix that went unnoticed due to the overwhelming amount of bird movement. During the course of the next 4 hours we experienced an incredible movement of birds throughout this relatively small peninsula that borders Coney Island Creek and juts into Gravesend Bay. The most abundant species were Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows, but we also tallied the highest number of White-crowned Sparrows and Swamp Sparrows that I've ever experienced in a single day in NYC. Another highlight was a large flight of Pine Siskins with approximately 200 seen, as well as, good numbers of Purple Finches. Both species of kinglets were everywhere. We also had a single meadowlark feeding on one of the grass soccer fields.
In the afternoon we birded at Green-Wood Cemetery where we heard only a few siskins. Bird activity at the cemetery was also very good, but not nearly as impressive as at the coast. It is interesting to note that Hermit Thrushes were abundant at Green-Wood and we also counted probably my single day high for Winter Wrens. Good birding, Rob http://citybirder.blogspot.com -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
